Rory McIlroy equalled his low-round of the week with a closing 67 to salvage pride and finish inside the top 20 at the Truist Championship as Norwegian Kristoffer Reitan finished strongest and secured his first PGA Tour win.
A disappointing four-over 75 meant the reigning Masters champion’s hopes of winning in back-to-back starts for the first time since 2014 had all but gone, but he did his best to claw his way back into it, birdieing five of the opening nine holes in the final round to make the turn at four-under for the day.
He couldn’t build on it on the back nine, however, birdieing the 10th but giving that shot back on 14 and carding seven pars to end the week tied for 19th.
“Yeah, I got off to a good start, but I hit the ball better,” he said afterwards. “I started to hit it left yesterday with everything. I spent a good bit of time on the range last night just trying to straighten it out. The range this week, the wind is predominantly been off the left, so I think when you hit a lot of balls in a left-to-right wind you start to aim a little bit left, your club face can get a little bit closed at impact just to try to counteract that wind. So hitting balls the last five or six days in that left-to-right wind on the range I just started to miss some left on the course. So I was trying to figure it out a little bit on the range last night, which I felt like I did and I hit the ball much better today.”
McIlroy now turns his attention to the second major of the season as he prepares to head north to Aronimink in Pennsylvania for the PGA Championship, and he feels that the range session and another day of practice at home before he arrives on site will stand him in good stead.
“As I said, I feel like I got into a couple of bad habits just because of that left-to-right wind on the range all week,” he explained. “So straightened that out. I’m going to go home tonight, which will be nice, spend a night in my own bed and practice at home tomorrow. Try to get a, you know, just sort of continue that feel and bring that up to Philadelphia for the rest of the week.”
He scouted the golf course last week and feels that the early visit will ease some of the pressure in the days leading up to the championship.
“No, I lived there for a week. Just played it every day,” he joked, referencing criticism that he received from some quarters after his frequent trips to Augusta National ahead of his Masters defence. “No, I went up and back in the same day. It was good to get — we played the BMW there in 2018, but the course played a lot differently. It was wet in 2018 and the greens didn’t play as fast or as severe as what I felt like they played last week when I played. So it’s not a long golf course, but the big defense is the greens and they can tuck the pins away if they want to.
“But yeah it was nice to get an early look at it. It just means that the week of the tournament you’re not under pressure to play a lot of holes and historically the practice rounds at the PGA can be excruciatingly long, so it’s probably going to just be nine holes Tuesday, nine holes Wednesday.”
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